Xcite liquidators confident of selling Bentley field before licence expires

Liquidators are confident they will wrap up the sale of one of the North Sea’s biggest undeveloped discoveries before the licence expires.

FTI Consulting said two months ago that it was in advanced discussions with one party over the sale of Xcite Energy’s 100% stake in the Bentley field.

No further updates have been published since then.

But Chad Griffin, a senior managing director at FTI, said yesterday that a sale was still on the cards before the licence for Bentley expires on June 30.

“We are still confident the sale can be achieved before the licence ends,” Mr Griffin said.

Mr Griffin and Ian Morton of FTI were appointed liquidators in December.

Xcite got into trouble after issuing £110million-worth of bonds to repay debts and pay for Bentley.

But it was unable to secure extra funds to pay back the bonds, which matured in full on October 31, 2016.

Bondholders rejected a debt-for-equity swap and an application was filed to place the company into liquidation in December.

Bentley is located on the East Shetland Platform, five miles south-east of the Bressay field – operated by Statoil, with Shell as its partner – and nine miles east of the EnQuest-operated Kraken field.